Everyone, I am really excited to finally officially announce our second location! Our new big brewery will be located at 22455 Davis Drive in Sterling and feature a 10 BBL brewhouse and 1,400 sq. ft. tasting room! Our system is currently being manufactured, and we are just about to begin construction. From day one, the plan was to always go bigger. I want to thank everyone that believed in us, and all of our customers who have made our little nanobrewery a success!

So, what does this mean? First, we are keeping our existing location. The nano will get 10 new taps, a cool remodeling, and some additional seating. The 3 BBL system will be put to work brewing sours, helmed by Brad Erickson. We’ve been pretty heavy on sours for a while now, with a lot of interesting kettle-soured and brett beers. We’ll also be doing some cool spontaneously-fermented stuff.

Our new location will be at 22455 Davis Drive in Sterling, right off Sterling Boulevard and Route 28. With 7000 square feet, we will have plenty of room to both brew and seat customers, a welcome change from cramming our entire operation into 600 sq. ft! Our new spot is right down the street from Beltway Brewing.

At the new location, we’ll begin brewing our core beers and seasonals. Our three year-round beers will be Red Kolsch, Cherry Cayenne Storm IPA, and Verdant Force double IPA. This is based on feedback from customers, our distributor, and our personal goals as a brewery. Being on a 10 BBL system, we will have some beer for distribution, but this system is considerably smaller than a lot of other breweries. This system size means two things. First, you will see our beer in distribution around northern Virginia and DC. Second, without having huge batch sizes, we are free to continue brewing the interesting beers we are really proud of, without having to worry about selling huge quantities. Having 60 BBLs of smoked imperial porter or hibiscus saison to distribute would make the prospect of brewing these beers less appealing, but on our smaller system, we can brew whatever we want.

Our seasonal selections will include one new session beer per month, and one more high ABV offering. We’ll bottle our bigger beers in 750 ml bombers, so expect to see beers like Shadow of Truth, Supernatural, and Machismo in bottles.

Also, expect to see special attention to sours at both locations. Sour IPA and sour saison should make regular occurrences.

In the meantime, look for limited distribution from our nano as we put our new 3 BBL to work. We’ll begin laying the groundwork for our expansion with draught distribution of kolsch and Cherry Cayenne Storm, and some more runs of bottles. I’ll be updating you with pictures of the build-out as we move along.

On a personal note, I just want to say how happy I am. We worked so hard to make this happen. There have been some really tough times, but things are finally moving forward. A key difference for us is that we have had to build our business from the ground up, and did not start out with any money. We have greatly outgrown our small space, too, which has been a real challenge. However, I think that has forced us to be a lot more creative, and we are better off for it. When I started the brewery, I had very different ideas for what I wanted to do. With nearly three years under our belts, we have a much better focus and idea of the mark we want to make on the beer scene. Oh, and about twenty absolutely killer recipes thanks to three years of nanobrewing.

Special thanks to the folks at Lost Rhino, Ocelot, Fair Winds, and Pale Fire for all of the help and guidance along the way, and to our great customers, who have made Crooked Run a place where everybody knows your name.